


In A Holidaze

by axolotl119



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:55:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22293682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axolotl119/pseuds/axolotl119
Summary: “It’s not uncommon for Christmas to go missing. She loves to go to the human world and spread good cheer. But, the thing is, she’s always back by December 1st, and I’ve never known her to stay out past that. It’s December 5th, and there’s absolutely no sign of her! It’s like a nightmare I had once! No, it’s worse, because we’ve looked everywhere and still don’t got no clue! That’s why we need you, Marie!”Would you believe me if I told you that this was a statement taken from advent on December 5th, my first official day on the Christmas Kidnapping Case? I don’t mean someone was kidnapped during Christmas! I mean Christmas was kidnapped!.Don’t worry, I wouldn’t believe it either.I’m Marie Alvarez, Detective Extraordinaire, and this is the story of the craziest case I’ve ever had.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

It all started during the Police Department’s annual Christmas Party. We always had it early, because our jobs got busier as the month wore on.

I love the Christmas season. It’s my favorite time of year, despite the increased workload. Candy canes, hot chocolate, presents! Just the thought of it makes me feel warm!

Anyways, it was December 4th, and everyone was having a blast at the department’s Christmas party… except me, Marie Alvarez, Workaholic Extraordinaire. I love Christmas, I really do, but I also had a really important report to finish.

My writing was rudely interrupted when someone placed a picture in front of my laptop screen. I frowned and looked up to see this person. I was also pretty sure that I’d locked the door earlier…

“Excuse me, sir,” I spoke slowly, “but that door was locked for a reason, and that reason was not for you to practice your lock-picking skills.” As I scolded him, I began to make a mental list of his characteristics. Honey-blond hair, tan skin, hazel eyes, glasses, muscle shirt with the American flag on it- wow, how patriotic- and some faded letters on the back, khaki-

“I-I, uh, I didn’t pick the lock.” He said before I could finish. “I- um, I have this… thing that needs to be solved quickly, as in quick, and my, uh… sources told me that you are the right hu- person for the job.”

I raised an eyebrow. This guy had picked the lock to room, interrupted my writing, and now expected me to drop everything and go solve his ‘thing’. I was definitely going to refuse this job! What did he think I was, a private investigator or something?

… But I was also curious. Who was this person, and who’d told him that quickly was in quick when it was clearly the other way around?

“What’s the case, sunshine?” I sighed, then pulled out a clean sheet of paper to start taking notes on.

“It’s not Sunshine, it’s Independence Day, ID for short. This person,” -here he picked the picture up and put it on top of my paper- “has been gone for way too long, and we need to find her quick, fast, and in a hurry.”

I studied the picture. The woman in question couldn’t have been more than 30, though her white hair seemed to belong to someone older. Judging from her facial features and body type, she was probably French, or at the very least European. However, she was wearing a large, festive scarf that covered most of her face, so my guess about her heritage could’ve been wrong.

I quickly wrote down my observations, then asked, “Name?”

“Christmas, but we use other names too, like Noël and Navidad.” ID replied while fiddling with his jacket zipper and staring at the floor.

“Job?”

“It’s… complicated.”

His answers and mannerisms began to make me more than a little suspicious. “Mr. Day- if that is even your name- is this some sort of prank? Is Bryan laughing in the back with a camera or something? I don’t appreciate being messed with. I actually have important work to do.” This was getting old fast. Independence Day? Christmas? What in the world was going on here?

“Well- it's- I… ughhhhhhhhhhh!” ID sighed angrily. “You won’t believe me unless I show you!” He then seemed to come to sort of realization, then said, “Hey! I was gonna have to take you anyway! We can get more work done if we leave now!” then looked at me eagerly and asked, “Do you wanna see what all of this is about?”

Fun fact about me- I am a very curious person. I question everything and don’t stop bothering whoever I need to bother until I receive an acceptable answer. I have often been told that, in my line of work, it is most likely going to be the literal death of me.

I also could not care less whether or not my curiosity will kill me.

“Well, yeah,” I told him, “I can’t do my work without seeing the crime scene.”

He nodded and pulled a small replica of the American flag. “Stand here, next to me. It’s going to feel weird because it’s the first time you move between worlds, and you might throw up, but don’t worry, and above all else, make sure you don’t- “

Before ID could finish his statement (and before I could even begin to process it), the world around us changed.


	2. Chapter 2

At first glance, the place we arrived(?) at was too good to be true. The house was a beautiful mansion that took my breath away, and the scenery was amazing. Imagine a quaint, quiet little town in the middle of a picturesque forest covered in snow that seemed as if every snowflake had been placed by a caring artisan. It seemed like the perfect place to spend Christmas.

Then, the weirdness began.

A man (whose outfit could really only be described as ‘the French flag’) came running out of the house yelling, “I want bread, not cake!” in a French accent as another person chased him while throwing small cakes with the phrase ‘LET THEM EAT CAKE!’ written in blue frosting on top.

ID gave me a look that I took as ‘please ignore them’ and said, “Welcome to Fre- oof” ID was cut off by a cake-cake (as I’d decided to call them) that managed to land right in his mouth. “I swear, for the love of- Constitution Day! Put those cakes back where they belong or so help me! Leave Bastille Day alone! Sorry Miss Alvarez, I-ah!”

“You can- umm, you can call me Muh-Marie.” I almost laughed several times at ID’s frosting-stained muscle shirt, but somehow manage to muster all of my self-control and remain… somewhat professional.

“Well… Marie, I can’t really say anything besides… CD’s crazy.” With that, ID grabbed the two by their shirt collars and marched them into the house. “I can show you somewhere you can sit and wait while I set these holidays straight.”

ID then proceeded to leave me in the largest library I’d ever seen. It was oh, only three stories, and each level had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I quickly decided that I would like to live in a three-story library. After all, you don’t see stuff like this back in the city! I decided to explore the entirety of this huge library, but ended up cutting my adventure short. I might have forgotten the fact that I was operating on little-to-no sleep, but my body hadn’t.

I had just decided to take a nap in one of the little study areas when ID found me again. He’d put on a new muscle shirt (maybe he only owned muscle shirts) and a look of pure frustration.

“I’m sorry about CD, they’re just… well… Constitution Day is Constitution Day. According to them, it was some sort of joke.” ID clearly didn’t believe CD’s excuse, but sat in the sofa across from mine and changed the subject. “So, Christmas. What do you need to know?”

“First off, I need the name of this place because it’s amazing and I love it, and second, I’m going to need to do some witness statement gathering.” I thought about it for two seconds, then continued, “Well, they won’t necessarily be witness statements, just… statements about, you know, this whole case and… whatnot.”

“Well, this world is called Holiland, you know, like holiday and land squished into one word, but we’re sitting in Freedom Manor, and thanks, and yeah, I agree. I know that Christmas was last seen on November 25th by her friend Easter. We have this entity called Suffering who’s kinda like… you know, the days without holidays that are all sad and stuff. She’s kidnapped Christmas before, but we’ve got her all locked up now, so it couldn’t have been her. The reason we’ve gotta find Christmas before, well, Christmas is because her holiday is right around the corner and she’s kinda like… a representation of all the goodwill on Earth. If she’s not present for her holiday, a lot of bad things are gonna happen the year after. I mean, the last time she was kidnapped, 2016 happened, and I’m sure no one wants a repeat of that.” ID moved closer to me as he talked as if he expected me to understand better if he was sitting right next to me.

It didn’t really work, but it did impress upon me the gravity of the situation. 2016 was a rough year for everyone, and I was hoping for a rather good year. The whole ‘living holiday’ thing was honestly the most confusing part of this whole situation, but I’d decided to just ignore it for the time being. It was just a normal case with weird names, right? Anyways, I really hoped to find more people like ID, who was willing to help and… pretty great, I guess. (Even if he did have a bit of a stutter. Just a bit.)

“Alrighty then!” I stretched a little as I finished writing my notes, then yawned widely. “I’ve got lots of really good info and stuff, but I think I’ll have to start tomorrow. First, I need some sleep. You guys got any bedrooms in between all these books?”

ID stared at me for a moment, then shook his head and stuttered, “We-well, not in the library or n-anything, but we do have… a bedroom… bedrooms… holidays don’t need sleep so our bedrooms are all more decoration and personal and stuff and we have a lot of holidays in Freedom Manor… but I think we still have a spare bedroom on the th-fourth floor… I think.”

“Are you okay?” I asked as he trailed off. He seemed a little flustered. Maybe the warmth of the library was getting to him. I knew it was kind of starting to annoy me. Just a bit. Only because I was wearing a sweatshirt over a long-sleeve t-shirt.

“Uh- yeah, yeah, I’m, uh, fine and, um, I guess I’ll show you where you can go sleep and… stuff.” With that eloquent statement, ID rose from his sofa and walked to an elevator. (I was rather upset to find out that it existed. I’d had to go up and down stairs while exploring the library earlier, and it really wasn’t fun.)

When we finally arrived at the bedroom, I was surprised. I don’t quite know what I was expecting (I mean, come on, this is ID we’re talking about. It could’ve been a floating magical palace.), but I was definitely not expecting… this. The quaint bedroom ID led me to had painted in various shades of turquoise and aquamarine and had a little balcony behind a pair of white French doors. A queen-sized platform bed had been positioned directly opposite the doors so that the person staying in the room could fall right into bed after staring up at the stars. A pair of bean bag chairs were carefully laid under a large lamp to create a small reading nook. When I turned the lights off, little blue-and-white fairy lights winked at me from the ceiling.

I was sure that I was dreaming. This place was beautiful.

“D-do you like it?” ID asked from the doorway. I hadn’t even realized I’d walked into the room. “The room configures itself to fit the holiday who occupies it, so I didn’t know if it would work for you since you’re not technically a holiday.”

“It’s beautiful!” I told him, then flopped down onto the (actually rather comfortable) bed.

“Well, I’m happy. I guess I’ll leave you to go to sleep now. Umm… happy dreams!” ID closed the door and I heard him walked off.

I fell asleep laughing about the fact that ID was probably off to go make sure that CD hadn’t baked more cake-cakes to bother BD with.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ID and Marie head towards the ~scene of the crime~

When I woke up in the morning, I found a small pile of clothes on one of the bean bag chairs with a note that read:

Hey Marie! I figured that you wouldn’t wanna be stuck wearing the same clothes you were wearing yesterday mostly because they looked really uncomfortable so I decided to let you borrow a few of my own. They’ll probably be a little big on you, but I think you’ll find a way to make it work, because you would probably look nice either way.

You can find the kitchen by taking the elevator down to the entrance floor, it’s the first second door on the right left.

P.S. CD makes everyone in FM breakfast every morning, so you’ll probably be able to meet everyone and ask them questions when you come down.  
-ID

After ‘tsk’ing over the fact that the P.S. was more a part of the letter than a post-script, I unfolded the clothes and put them on the bed so that I could see what ID had given me to wear. I was surprised to find that he hadn’t just given me a muscle shirt and shorts. Instead, he’d given me a black tank top to wear underneath a loose, navy blue dropped armhole tank covered with white stars and a pair of white sweats.

The clothes were rather loose, but they managed to cover what I needed them to cover and look somewhat decent. After putting my hair in a half-ponytail and tending to my hygiene, I was ready to go down and eat whatever CD had cooked up for me. (I was kinda hoping it was a cake. I honestly wouldn’t mind cake for breakfast.)

To my surprise (and sadness), CD had made a whole spread of breakfast foods (which didn’t include cake). I didn’t know what to eat because everything looked delicious! I almost gave into the temptation and just had a plate of everything. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. All of the food! But before I could live out my wild fantasy, ID came in with a book, sat down, and said, “The usual, please.” CD then got a plate and served him some eggs with bacon and toast, with orange juice on the side. 

ID thanked him and was about to dig in when he noticed me standing awkwardly outside the door. 

“Morning, Marie!” He said, then patted the spot next to him and asked, “Why don’t you sit down and eat? CD’s a really good cook.”

I slowly made my way to the spot he’d indicated and sat down, then took a good look at the spread of food behind the counter. It had all the normal stuff- eggs, biscuits, bacon, etc.- and other dishes I didn’t know existed and wasn’t sure I wanted to try.

“Can you just fry some eggs for me?” I asked CD.

CD nodded briskly and walked into the kitchen.

It suddenly struck me that I’d never heard CD speak. Out of curiosity I turned to ID and asked, “Can CD talk?”

ID shook his head and opened his stuffed mouth to explain, but I quickly hushed him with a “just wait until you finish eating.”

The two of us sat in silence for a while until other holidays started traipsing in. First it was Canada Day, then Fiji Day, Australia Day, Afghan Independence Day, Independence Day of Bangladesh…

At some point, ID informed me that he was the American Independence Day- though, I figured that was the case, mostly because of the fact that his wardrobe could accurately be described as ‘the American flag’, and I’m pretty sure he’d mentioned it last night as well.

I tried to get info from every one of the holidays I met (and there must’ve been at least 100), but no one knew any more than ID did. Some even offered to help, but I decided that the investigation was crowded enough with ID and I and managed to politely refuse.

Somewhere in between all of this I managed to eat my breakfast and pack everything I figured I was going to need for the day, and ID and I left as soon as he was ready.

“So, where to?” ID asked. “Oh, can we go to the crime scene? Please? We can go and search through it like… like an episode of Blue’s Clues!

I gave him a look and said, “This is definitely not an episode of a children’s show. It’s real life. But yes, we do need to go to the crime scene.” 

ID nodded happily and started to walk in the direction of what I assumed to be the ‘crime scene’ as I thought more about my statement. How did I know that this was real life? For all I knew, this was all some sort of weird dream. Teleportation, holidays… I had been pretty tired when I was working on my report…

Before I could finish that line of thought, ID began to speak.

“CD was in this really bad accident before he became Constitution Day, and in that accident he lost his ability to speak. Not like car accident, like ‘accident’-accident.” ID rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at the snow as he proceeded to tell me the rest of the story- a story that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write down. I suppose that the most I can say is that some people have no holiday spirit.

“Wow.” I said when he was finished. “I just… I can’t believe that.”

ID nodded. “He’s such a great guy, too. That is, when he’s not antagonizing Bastille Day.”

I laughed. “At least he still has a sense of humor!”

After that, the two of us walked in silence until we reached a charmingly small cottage I assumed to be Christmas’s house.

“Here we are.” ID said, confirming my guess. “Christmas’s little place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've actually been reading this, thank you so much. The first four and a half chapters were actually written over a year ago (so it's not as good as my fanfic, which is recent) but posting this here actually gave me the inspiration to keep writing it (although I also discovered that my outline and my story had... diverged somewhere so if something seems weird... I had to pick up entirely where I left off and didn't quite know what was happening with the stuff I didn't write down) so right now I'm up to chapter six and still having fun. I had no update schedule or anything so I'll just post when I can (but I'm trying to limit myself to one chapter a day so I can keep my other timetable.) Anyways, love y'all, see you on the flip side


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ID and Marie investigate ~the scene of the crime~ and receive their first real clue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello people who are actually reading this! Here's chapter four, and we're officially one chapter away from my actual, current writings. I'm having a lot of fun and this will be short-story length.

I had never seen a more crowded area than the inside of Christmas’s small cottage. With all the people milling about, I was more than a little scared that some key piece of evidence had been disturbed.

“ID!” I whisper-hissed as I pulled his sleeve. “Can you tell them to get out please? I can’t investigate if I have to move through everyone, and I also can’t investigate if all the evidence is compromised!”

ID’s eyes widened. “Oh! Alright!” He then turned to the rest of the holidays and shouted, “HEY! ALL OF YOU! IF YOU AREN’T ACTUALLY HERE FOR A GOOD REASON, JUST GET OUT!”

At first, this had no effect on the holidays crowding the crime scene. However, one holiday heard ID, tugged on his friend’s arm then walked out, who then looked at her friend then walked out, and in about half an hour the room had been completely cleared with the exception of me, ID, CD (who I hadn’t seen arrive- when did they get here?), and a holiday who I hadn’t met yet.

The holiday I didn’t know said something into a small radio, and behind me the doors opened. I turned around to see a pair of burly guards carry in a tiny, long-haired teenager with chains around her wrists and ankles- both of which were bare, though she wore a ratty Batman t-shirt with a pair of new blue jeans. I assumed from the chains and the guards that she was a prisoner of some sort, then realized that she must be the Suffering ID was telling me about. Holiland didn’t seem like the type of place with a crowded prison system, and I figured kidnapping the epitome of good will was a good way to get arrested.

Suffering was given a bag of hot cheetos, complained that they weren’t hot enough, then went into a corner and sulked while eating the Cheetos. CD went and sat next to her, and she began to converse with them in sign language. (Which I definitely didn’t think either of them knew- note to self! Use sign language with CD!)

After assuring myself of Suffering’s identity (by asking ID), I explored the cottage. I quickly realized that the ‘small’ part was an illusion- the inside was about the size of a large house. The three bedrooms were all made up neatly with festive quilts on the beds and different color paint in each. All of them were much too clean to belong to a regular person, and I would’ve though it suspicious if ID hadn’t told me that holidays didn’t sleep.

After that, I decided to check out the kitchen, which was right across from the bedrooms.

I was shocked by what I found in there. The kitchen was trashed. Pots and pans were scattered everywhere, and I instinctively drew away as I noticed the shards of glass on the floor. I was initially confused by the presence of what seemed like colorful wood blocks and tiny figures, but then I realized that they were the remains of several snow globes.

I recorded my observations in my notebook and decided to go find ID and get his view on the messy kitchen. For all I knew, Christmas regularly threw all her kitchen supplies and decorations on the floor for fun. (Highly unlikely, but still probable.)

When I finally found ID, he was freaking out in the foyer with three other holidays- CD, the aforementioned Suffering, and the holiday I hadn’t been introduced to yet.

“THERE’S NOTHING ELSE WE CAN DO!” wailed the new entity. “THERE’S NO CLUES OR EVIDENCE OR ANYTHING! ACCEPT IT, ID, WE’RE NEVER GONNA SEE HER AGAIN!”

“Of course there’s something we can do!” ID fired back. “The only reason we haven’t found any clues is because we haven’t even started looking!”

“We could always… let me out,” Suffering began.

“Absolutely not!” ID yelled. “The last time we let you out, 2016 happened!”

“An unqualified success!” Suffering declared proudly.

“THERE’S NOTHING WE CAN DO!” the other entity continued wailing.

CD loudly slammed their fist against the wall, which quickly caught everyone’s attention. After they made sure everyone was watching them, they clicked a button on their phone, and a feminine voice began to say, “Listen up!”. Before the voice could finish speaking, they shook their head, clicked something else to make it stop, messed with their phone a little, and triumphantly hit the play button again. “Listen up!” Came the same female voice. They paused it again, then shook their head, sighed, and pressed resume. “I think you all need help because all of you are running around like chickens with their heads cut off and it’s hilarious but also unproductive. Wow I hate this app. I hope the voice can be made better. What was I typing? Oh yeah. We should ask Marie what to do because she is the detective here, not ID or Thanksgiving, and she is the most qualified person to tell us what to do. Don’t start questioning Suffering, because she’ll just ignore us like always. And forget our birthdays. Yes, I am still salty over that.” After that finished playing, they typed in something else and looked at me expectantly. “Well, Marie, what now?”

Everyone’s attention turned to me, and I felt really uncomfortable. I’d kind of been thinking of all of this as some sort of grand adventure, and, despite the fact that I knew it was a serious situation, I felt as if I hadn’t understood the true gravity of the situation until now. These people were looking to me to be their saving grace, and I didn’t know if I was really up to it. After all, I was just an amateur detective from New York and would’ve very much liked to argue that I was the least qualified person to tell anyone what to do.

Instead of voicing my doubts, I took a deep breath in, counted to five, then let it out. I can do this, I told myself. And if I can’t, then at the very least I can get a good story out of this.

“Alright, so I just took a quick look around, and I noticed that the kitchen was a disaster zone. ID, you seem to know her pretty well, so I want you to come with me and give your take on the mess. CD and… brown hair guy, stay here with Suffering.”

The brown-haired, stocky man quickly smoothed his shirt down, then turned to me and offered his hand. “Hello, my name is Thanksgiving, and I would really like to aid your investigation in any way possible.”

“Well, I kinda just asked you to-“ Before I could finish my sentence, Thanksgiving scoffed and walked towards the kitchen, not even bothering to see if we were following him.

I turned to ID with a questioning look, and he simply sighed and said, “It’s better to just follow him.”

When we reached the kitchen, ID pulled a face and declared, “This is not at all how Christmas likes her kitchen to look.”

“I imagine that it would be very hard to make Christmas cookies in this kind of mess.” I joked as I added ‘neat’ to my notes on Christmas’s personality.

ID shook his head, laughed a little, then said, “Hey, Thanksgiving, let’s give Marie a hand.”

20 minutes later, I was leaning against the wall, exasperated by the lack of evidence. All I could find was a bunch of broken candy canes and… a weird wood thingy.

“Hey, ID, what is this?” I said, holding up the weird wood thing.

“It’s a dreidel. Hanukkah loves them!” ID said, then asked, “Can I have it?”

Before I could give it to him, Thanksgiving stole it out of my hands. “This is one of Hanukkah’s own personal dreidels!” He declared, then gasped, “Hanukkah was the one that kidnapped Christmas!”

ID and I looked first at each other, then back at him. It was a pretty solid conclusion our lack of actual evidence, but I felt as if there was something I was missing…

But what?! We had searched the whole house up and down, and only this dreidel thing had come up. How was it possible that only this had come up? And, beyond that, how had this Hanukkah person managed to neglect this one rather incriminating piece of evidence, especially if they’d manage to scrub clean the rest of the house? Nothing was adding up.

“Before we rush to any conclusions,” I started slowly, “let’s pay this Hanukkah a visit and see what they have to say. After all, everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I have another short story up my sleeve called 'Carni-Vale' that's a lot of poetic prose and a looot more recent than this one. If you'd like me to post it, put it in the comments! Otherwise, hope you liked it!


	5. Chapter 5

“Wow.” I had no other words to say as I stood in front of what was possibly the largest building I had ever seen. The large structure made even Freedom Manor look small! The whole place looked like a church one might find in a European country where even the sand had a history. Smaller versions of the ornate gothic windows seen on most churches from the Middle Ages lined the upper levels, and, though it was decorated with some pathetic Christmas wreaths and weary Christmas lights, the roughly rectangular structure felt as though it were towering menacingly over me.

“Yeah.” ID agreed. “We ought to go in and see if Hanukkah’s here. I think his room is… three floors up and three rooms to the right? Or was it to the left? Maybe we -”

Before ID could finish what he was saying, he was hit in the back of his head with a cake-cake. He flushed and glanced at me as if he was trying to assess the damage the hit had caused his back, and I started laughing. I had tried so, so, SO hard to maintain some level of professionalism throughout the course of this investigation, but I had become so comfortable being around ID that I couldn’t help myself. It had only been a day or so, but I felt as though we’d known each other forever or something. Or maybe it was my allergies acting up again. Yeah, probably the allergies.

Before I could further embarrass ID, I decided to turn around and get a look at our attacker… only to get hit square in the face with a second cake-cake. _Serves me right._ I thought as ID began giggling.

“CD! That’s rude!” ID said in between giggles.

CD shrugged and pulled out their phone.

“If you’re looking for Hanukkah she’s not here.” A smooth, hard to place voice began. “I can take you to her, BUT you have to promise not to tell anyone else where she is.”

“Alright!” ID cheered, and I made a motion to stop them.

“We need to interview the people here. They live here with Hanukkah, so it stands to reason that if something fishy was going on, they would have picked up on something, right?” I took out my notebook and a pencil and turned around to find ID bouncing on his feet and CD giving me an upset look. “Hey! Don’t look at me like that!” I admonished them. “We’re trying to help out your…” I looked to ID for guidance on the exact nature of CD and Hanukkah’s relationship.

“Best friend.” ID coughed.

“Best friend!” I repeated in a tone I hoped was soothing. Either way, CD deflated a little bit, then turned and walked towards the building.

“So what is this place?” I asked ID as we walked.

“This is Traditentral!” He informed me, then made a face and said, “Everyone here is such a stickler for rules and stuff, it’s kinda annoying. I don’t really like to come here.” He glanced at CD and quickly said, “Except for Hanukkah! Hanukkah’s great!” He thought for a couple seconds more, then added, “And Advent. They’re not so bad.”

CD let out a harsh burst of air which I suspected might’ve been a laugh for someone with functioning vocal cords, then began to tap something out on their phone.

“You don’t need to do that with me!” I reassured them. “I can read ASL!”

CD started a little but put their phone away.

When we reached the entrance to the mansion, CD stopped and signed, ‘I’m not going to go in but I’ll be waiting out here for you guys.’

I nodded and ID and I began to collect statements.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m tired and there’s like 2 people who read this huzzah

‘Hanukkah is… around here somewhere.’ CD signed as we reached Freedom Manor, then frowned at their phone.

We waited for Hanukkah to text CD back, and ID and I started a snowball fight in the lawn of Freedom Manor. More holidays joined us as time wore on, and by the time CD had received the text from Hanukkah we had a good thirty people fighting in a snowball free-for-all. Soaked and shivering, CD ushered us upstairs to dry off and put on some warm clothes then meet them in the kitchen.

When we arrived in the kitchen half an hour later, CD was staring off into the distance as they stirred some hot chocolate with a cinnamon stick. When they saw us standing in the doorway, they started slightly and grabbed some cups as we made our way over to the table. They gave us our cups and held one in each hand, then walked towards the library. Once there, we walked to one of the third floor study areas, where a small, lean woman wearing a green turtleneck and beige flowy pants sat anxiously.

“Are you Hanukkah?” I asked as I settled myself on the sofa across from her.

“Yeah, tha-that’s me.” Hanukkah responded, playing with the hem of her shirt.

ID settled down in the armchair next to me as CD sat down next to Hanukkah and gave her the other hot chocolate with a reassuring smile. The two of them then proceeded to have some sort of conversation that involved little more than minute facial expressions and eye movements before they looked over to us, clearly having reached some sort of consensus.

“So I guess you guys think I did it?” Hanukkah started, still visibly nervous.

“We don’t know any-” I began soothingly, but Hanukkah interrupted me.

“Do they think I did it?” She turned and asked CD.

CD shook his head and glared at us slightly.

“Oh. Good.” She said, holding her mug to her chest. “I know the evidence looks bad, but I promise you that I did not kidnap Christmas.” She paused to sip her drink, then continued, “But I know who did.”

ID and I exchanged a glance at that. “Who did it?” I asked, carefully placing my mug next to me in favor of picking up my pen.

“Well,” she glanced around warily, then leaned in close to us and whispered, “Halloween kidnapped Christmas!”

“What?!” ID and I both yelled at the same time, and my mug fell over.

“Shh!” Hanukkah shushed us, waving her hands in the air like she was trying to stop the sound from travelling.

We were quiet for a couple of seconds as I attempted to reduce the staining on the sofa, but after I’d done some damage control (and ID has assured me that the stain would disappear on its own) I sat back in my seat and asked, “What makes you think that?”

Hanukkah took a couple more sips of her drink, then initiated another silent conversation with CD, this one ending with Hanukkah sighing and looking away while CD pointedly gestured his head towards us.

“Okay, so,” Hanukkah started, “Here in Holiland, there’s a program called The HoliCrisis Help Desk for holidays who are having identity crises.”

“That’s a real thing?!” I exclaimed, surprised.

“Those are a real thing.” ID confirmed.

Hanukkah and CD nodded.

“Anyways,” Hanukkah continued, “I volunteer with HoliCrisis when I’m not doing my holiday duties, and Halloween is one of our regulars. She feels really weird about herself most of the time, because you know, Halloween is also All Hallow’s Eve and the day after is Dia De Los Muertos and she’s actually some sort of weird hybrid between multiple other holidays and-”

CD cut her off with a hand on her shoulder.

“Oh, right, sorry for rambling.” She cleared her throat a little, then continued. “Anyways, Halloween always comes in on Fridays, because she likes to spend the weekend “getting that therapy bread”, as she calls it, but on December 1st, she wasn’t around.”

“That’s the day Christmas went missing!” ID declared.

Hanukkah nodded seriously.

“And then, the next day, she showed up like always, but wouldn’t tell us why she wasn’t there the day before, AND,” She paused dramatically. “She was wearing the red sweater.”

ID and CD gasped.

“Okay, I’ll bite.” I said, “What’s ‘the red sweater’?”

“It’s the sweater Christmas wears on Christmas Eve!” ID whispered, shocked.

“And, and,” Hanukkah continued, “I texted Christmas to see if she wanted to go to The Hang Out with me and CD that afternoon, and HALLOWEEN’S POCKET BUZZED.”

ID released a string of sounds I couldn’t decipher while CD shoved his cheeks into his hands. I just jotted everything down in my notebook and closed it, suddenly tired.

“Well, I say we call it a night.” I stretched and yawned to emphasize my point.

“Holidays don’t sleep.” ID, Hanukkah, and CD reminded me.

“Then I guess I’ll sleep and you guys will… do things for six hours.” I stood up and stretched again.

Can I bake? CD signed cheekily.

“NO!” ID yelled, and I chuckled and made my way to the elevators.

“Six hours?” Hanukkah exclaimed behind me. “Back when I was human, I never slept for six whole hours!”

I stopped, suddenly. What did she mean, “back when I was human?”

I heard a slight rustling, then looked back and realized that ID had left and CD and Hanukkah were signing too quickly for me to understand. I wanted to question her further about her apparent human origins, but suddenly a wave of tiredness hit me, and I went to my room to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no one come for me like “cd uses they pronouns tho!” I wrote most of this story before I knew he/they was an option and yet intuitively made cd use he/they pronouns
> 
> aka now that’s what I call projection


End file.
